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About Ryan

Hello! My name is Ryan, and I'm from Lakeland, Michigan. I've had an affinity for video games almost my entire life, playing familiar titles like World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2, and going way back to games like Fire Emblem and Metroid. I'm a serial monogamist of a gamer, exclusively playing one game that I do my best to master. Currently, that game is League of Legends. I've played a variety of MOBA's, but League offers the most competition and a clean, skill-shot based gameplay. I'll be blogging all things League here!
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Nidalee has been a great jungler since her rework, and after several buffs to her jungling ability, she’s now widely considered to be a top five solo queue and competitive jungler. I’ve played Nidalee through all of her stages (AD top lane was so much fun) and jungle is my favorite role. I’ve played a lot with her build in the jungle, and of course it’s elastic, changing based on what’s needed. This guide is for Nidalee’s starting stats and item build, I will add a more comprehensive gameplay portion at a later date

RUNES/MASTERIES:

After many, many Nidalee jungle games I’ve found this set-up to be the best feeling. It gives you everything you need to have an ideal early/mid game, which is where Nidalee can really take hold of a game and snowball it out of control.

ABILITIES:

Start with E, then W, then Q for levels 1-3. After that, the skill max order is:

R>Q>E>W

ITEMS:

Start Machete and two health potions

Build your machete into Rangers, then Runeglaive.

Runeglaive really made things interesting in terms of how you can build Nidalee. After trying out a number of different ideas, here’s what I think is best (the rest of these items are built in whatever order you need them. Always keep in mind who’s on your team/their team, who is ahead, and what that means in terms of building the best items for your situation):

Sorcerer’s Boots: CDR is amazing on Nidalee, but with this build, you’ll get close to maxing it out at 40% before factoring in boots. Taking flat magic penetration is great for your damage anyway.

Morellonomicon: Even though Runeglaive provides pretty good mana regeneration (TY RITO), Nidalee still needs some mana for those siege/poke situations that won’t require you to auto attack something. Another primary reason I use this as a core item in 5.12 on Nidalee is for the precious, precious CDR. 80 AP is pretty great as well considering Nidalee’s great AP scaling.

Zhonya’s Hourglass: Nidalee is crazy squishy since her HP nerfs. Luden’s is great and I was running that as my core item for a while, but after the nerfs to Ludens, I feel that Zhonya’s is more valuable overall.

Void Staff: Essential item for anyone that builds as much AP and does as much damage as Nidalee.

Rabadon’s Deathcap: Remember how I said Nidalee has great AP scaling? Wassup Rabadon, gimme that hat. Seriously though, I usually save Void Staff and rab-cap for my last two items, because they’re the raw damage that will keep me relevant as the game goes on. If you’re outrageously far ahead, rab-cap or even Luden’s Echo can be great to snowball the game.

MAKE SURE YOU’RE ALWAYS BUYING WARDS. Get a pink ward early on as well, and replace it if it dies. Trade your warding trinket for a sweeper and upgrade it when possible. Later on, changing between the upgraded ward trinket and sweeper will be dependent on the situation and how well your team is warding/de-warding.

If you arrive to late-game where you have more money than you can spend, sell your Runeglaive and replace it with either a Luden’s Echo or Lich Bane, depending on whether you’re in a game where you need to poke (Luden’s) or fight (Lich Bane) more often. Make sure that if you do this to replace your Sorcerer’s Shoes with Boots of Lucidity to keep that CDR in a good place.

SUMMONER SPELLS:

Smite and Flash. Don’t even mess with it.

Thanks for checking out the guide! I’ll be keeping it updated as the meta changes, I find more ideal builds, or a new patch comes

Since this is my first post, I figured I should start with something (that at least I think) is useful for my League brethren who are struggling to climb the ranked ladder.

Grinding up in ranked can be hard, but more than that, it can be really, damn, frustrating. At times, it feels like you can’t go a game without an afk, a D/C, or at least one raging feeder that makes the game feel impossible to win. A lot of gaining ground in the coliseum of ranked has to do with your mechanics, macro-play, and overall feel for the game. However, something that many of the people I know who play this game don’t understand is that so much more of winning ranked games has to do with your mindset and communication than anything else. If you can put yourself in the right frame of mind and communicate constructively and productively with your teammates, then your chance to win that next game just went up like, 30%. Here are a few tips that apply to every rank, whether it be bronze or master, that can help you win more games.

-Remember, EVERY GAME IS ON YOU. If you lost the game, it was your fault, if you won, what could you have done better? Don’t ever blame anyone else for losing a game, and I don’t just mean don’t call them out. Understand that no matter how bad they played, you could have done more to help your team win, and if you’re communicating with them constructively, then they won’t give up on the game and will continue to play hard, even after some costly mistakes.

Situations like this (two junglers) can be easily avoided by good team communication. (Image from http://riot.com/1BxJXiW)

-Have at least one champion that you’re comfortable on in every role (that isn’t likely to be banned). If someone on your team DEMANDS a role (you know these players), then let them have it. Giving up a role (even if it’s your favorite) is worth it to have a level-headed team that isn’t already flaming each other before getting in game.

-Try to diffuse any tension among teammates in game. A quick “don’t worry guys, we got this :)” can do a lot to ease a few angry summoners. Say whatever works for you and the situation, and don’t add to the flames.

-Make sure that you’re relaxed when going into ranked play. Sometimes I do this by playing a normal game as sort of a warm-up, then go straight into a ranked. Playing a normal doesn’t provide any stress, and it gets me into a place where I’m just playing the game. Then when I get into ranked, I just keep playing confidently. Do what works best for you, but make sure that you’re in a good place when you dive into the fray.

Having that positive mindset when you’re going into ranked play really does make a world of difference. So go to your happy place, get off my blog, and get back to grinding ranked. Diamond is closer than you think!